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Test and Validation

We continue the emphasis on quality of deliverable software. GNU systems and conventions are employed to manage the development process. The runtime software delivered by NPAC includes comprehensive suites of test programs that can be executed automatically when the system is configured and built on a new platform.

We have developed Fortran syntax test suite for testing of Fortran 90 and High Performance Fortran (HPF) compilers. This has been expanded considerably to include exhaustive syntax testing and some semantics testing [29,82]. We find that our test suite can be used to ``debug'' commercial HPF compilers. As a result of this extensive testing, our new HPF front end is now stable and has been released to the public. Beyond the front end, we have developed an HPF compiler test program generator: a multi-level HPF code generator for validating HPF compiler transformations. This has been used to evaluate leading commercial compiler limitations (DEC, IBM, PGI).

A suite of more complete HPF applications, suitable for testing compilers, has been made available [73].


next up previous contents
Next: Compilers Up: Software Engineering Previous: Object Oriented principles   Contents
Bryan Carpenter 2002-07-12